The coil coatings market share has become the second largest one in home and aboard coatings industry, with automotive coatings going ahead. The ratio of coil to automotive coatings is going up annually based on statistics, which is 1/3 abroad, but nearly 1/6 in home and expected to increase further in 2001.

    The technology of "prefinishing" is used in coil coating. In the metal-processing industry, precoated sheets of galvanized steel or aluminum are stamped, deep drawn, bent, and finally formed certain ways which can be directly used for assembling product. They are applied mainly in the field of home application such as the shell of refrigerator, transportation (cladding commercial vehicles), interior and exterior building structure (i.e. window/door, metallic proof and moving house), and can coating, etc. Recently the line of prefinishing for aluminum-plastic sheet has come into operation, which increases the safety care for its better fire and heat assistance by mean of coating PVC with thin aluminum sheet.

    Coil coating, like other environmental friendly coatings such as powder coating and waterborne coating, is more and more welcome among users, with its fast market growth in line with government's requirement of environment protection. Recently coil coating technology has been developed from the simple liquid amino-polyester system to diverse ways, i.e. powder coatings and UV-curing processes. Now the application of polyester or amino-polyester resin and polyurethane for aluminum and steel sheet is more than 80 percent (abroad, 60 percent), and liquid coatings, goes beyond 90 percent.

1. Summary on Steel Coil Coating Manufacture in China

    The R&D of steel coil coating began late 1970's (the period of Chinese sixth-five plan), which involved in CNCCC Changzhou Paint&Coatings Chemical Industry Research Institute, Shanghai Paint&Coatings Research Institute, Shanghai Zhenghua Paint Manufacture Plant and Anshan Steel Manufacture Plant as well. Although Anshan Steel Manufacture Plant did not operate late. In the past decade, the technology of color sheet prefinishing gradually showed its potential in aspects of productivity improvement and energy-saving as well as environment protection, in addition to the influences of the western country like Europe and America, it is growing rapidly with dozens of enterprises ongoing now under different systems, for example, joint venture, wholly foreign-owned mechanism, and research by Chinese own technology, etc. characterized by more competitive market.

    Some relatively large-scale manufacturers (factories or companies) characterized by more than 70 percent of market share are provided as following:

    Shanghai Zhenghua Paint Manufacture Plant is the largest supplier in China with its yield ability of 5,000 tons per year, taking 70percent Shanghai Baoshan Steel Inc. market share.

    Sweden Baker (Shengzhen) Zhonghua Paint Company is a Sino-Sweden joint venture, featured for its classic red paint. The technology how to solve the color change problem of red paint used in exterior structure is specially provided by this company which gained a great success in Wuhan Steel Inc. Color sheet manufacture factory.

    Baotou Paint Factory is also one of the earliest factories for coil coating. During the period of Seventh-Five Plan, The technology for primer coatings was transformed from Changzhou Paint&Coatings Chemical Industry Research Institute Baotou Paint Factory who is developing new products together with Inner Mongolia Scientific Research Institute. However, its market share is limited for less diversity of products, and its products are mostly provided for Baoshan Steel Inc.

    Shanghai (Nippon)Company was born in the early stage of architecture coatings. Now it is growing up with its quiet large market share in China and playing an important role in terms of furthering Chinese architecture coatings and improving qualities of products. Particularly in the last few years, the company yielded new products such as automotive coatings (i.e. cathodic electrodeposition, topcoat) and coil coating, characterized by its special style of making every effort to operate in a classic way. Now its products are provided for Huada Color Steel Sheet Plant (Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province) Qindao Haier Group (Shandong province) and Beijing Window/Door Company.

    Taiwan Zhuangda Company is foreign-owned one whose key product is coil coatings for aluminum-plastic materials, with its successful application. Now it has been provided for Southeast Aluminum Processing Factory, in addition, it can be also used for color steel sheets.

    KCC(South Korea) is a joint venture who is running one operating line in Dalian (jiling province).

    There are four coil coating enterprises in Changzhou, named Jiangsu Hongye Coatings Science-technology Industry Co., Ltd. Nangling Chemical Industry Company, Haiba Paint&Coatings Industry Company and Changzhou No.2 Coating Industry factory, with total annual yielding of 1.000 tons odds.

    In addition, AKZO-NOBEL plans to invest in China but it has not put into practice yet until now.

    Some non-government and privately owned enterprises are also standing now, but less strong because of the small-scale operation.

2. Estimation on Coil Coating Market in China

    Coil Coating is showing a bright future in China, with its arising demand yearly. According to statistics, the prefinishing materials (i.e. steel, aluminum, aluminim-plastic) are 1.2 million tons per year. If based on 2percent of which, the output of the coil coating is 24,000 tons accordingly. It is expected that this year's sheet is 24,000 tons, and 30,000 tons of the coil coating is needed accordingly.

3. Coil Coating Demand in China

Table 1 shows a summary on coil coating demand in China.

4. A General Survey on Coil Coating Manufactures with Their Output

As described above, coil coating is mainly used in the fields of architecture coatings (door,window, etc.), exterior shell of house electric application. So these users are company for sheet (top tow: wuhan Steel Inc. and Baoshan Steel Inc.), company for house electric application (i.e. Qingdao Haeir Group), company for metallic architecture materials (i.e. Beijing Jianxiang Color Steel Plant). As for the actual demand of coil coating for every user, we are suggested not to describe it in details in views of commercial secret because they are not willing to show their demand publicly. Table 2 shows a summary on coil coating output in China. The users listed in Table 3 are prospective and undergoing in terms of using coil coating. Currently, the biggest end user of coil coating is Shanghai Baoshan Steel Inc., over 70% coil coating of which is provided by Shanghai Zhenghua Paint Manufacture Plant, the rest less 30% by Sweden Baker (Shengzhen) Zhonghua Paint Company, Baotou Paint Factory and Akzo-Nobel.